Hike to the ruins at Phellos

Once again, the weather turned out better than forecast. Yes, there has been rain every day but it's either in the evening/overnight, or maybe a shower in the afternoon. Otherwise, it's been really nice. And perfect temperatures for hiking.

So on Thursday, we drove inland a bit to the tiny village of Pınarbaşı to find where the Lycian Way hiking trail intersects the village.

We had to go up a steep road to get from Kas, and the views were spectacular!

This is looking down on the peninsula we hiked the day before...

And the Greek island of Kastellorizo in the distance.

Hairpin turn on a steep road.

Did I mention it was another beautiful day?

We found the village of Pınarbaşı and managed to find some parking off the single lane road that goes through the village. The Lycian Way hiking trail was right near the parking area, and off we went.

If you missed it before, I had explained in another blog post that the Lycian Way hiking trail is a long (over 500 kms, 300 miles) trail that mostly follows the southwestern Turkish coast. But there are some inland sections, and we found this one inland section that leads up to the ruins of the military settlement of Phellos, located on top of a hill.

The start of the trail in the village is really pretty.

It doesn't take long to get a view, including the minaret of the small village mosque.

Heading higher.

My mapping program (maps.me) told me that it was 2.2 kms (1.4 miles) one way up the hill to the ruins, with a 964' elevation gain. Between that and the out of the way location, we figure that the only people who get to see Phellos are people who are actually hiking the Lycian Way.

Heading higher.

The trail is well marked.

Going up.

This old block wall was the first indication of ruins.

Nice views looking back towards the sea.

An odd cave.

We came across this odd cave, and we couldn't decide if it was manmade, or if it was natural. We're still not sure either way! The roof structure seemed natural, but some of the interior looked like it had been built.

A few steps further on, we came across this tomb...

Me, checking to see if anybody is still inside.

These tombs have all been cut open. That's the hole you see me peering in. Probably looters many hundreds of years ago.

Columns laying buried.

This was the most unexcavated, natural ruins sites that we have visited. I kind of like it better this way, but I also understand why they want to explore and clean and rebuild some of them.

Cistern?

View from the top looking inland.

Ruth enjoying the view.

Scenery along the way.

I was poking around in some rocks and came across this.

I always hope to find a bag of gold coins, but the best I could do was this broken pottery handle!

It's all Greek to me.

We thought we had seen all that there was to see, but Ruth said "let's go on a little further just in case there's anything else". And it turned out we hadn't even made it to the best part yet!

More crypts.

Wow.

Even a sign explaining a little bit more.

Pretty greenery.

Inside one of the crypts. This had had a door leading to another section in the back.

I looked, but there was no bag of gold coins!

We had a snack up at the top, and made our way back down. We heard voices a few times, but never saw any other people the whole way. We think it may have been a local shepherd we were hearing.

Another great day in Turkey!

We have now walked 328.8 kms (203.9 miles) since we arrived in Turkey October 13th.

Today is market day, so we are going into town to buy a weeks worth of fruits, veggies and cheese. Then another hike this afternoon. Turkey is under a full curfew from 9pm tonight until 5am Monday morning so we need to pick up a few other things to get us through the weekend.

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